I know there are a few science minded people here on MobileRead, and I was curious about your thoughts on news stories that the Higgs Boson has been discovered (sort of).

Several news stories have reported that on Wednesday the physicists at CERN are expected to announce they have found "footprints" and the "shadow" of the Higgs Boson (the so called God Particle). I find these footprint/shadow statements rather bewildering. It has always been my understanding that we have never seen *ANY* particles. The existence of all particles has been inferred. Several decades ago they were inferred from bubbles in cloud chambers, but now we have sophisticated computers that exam the results of high energy impacts, but they still don't actually "see" the particles. It is just more sophisticated cloud chambers. Why is it that they can definitively say a Strange Quark and a Muon exists based on inference, but only say that there are footprints and shadows of the Higgs Boson?